A Sort of Silence
by sono spiacente
Summary: Riku/Sora ჯ Hold still, let me internalize you.


The thing is, looking back, Sora had _always_ been the type of person who would travel worlds and galaxies and face imminent death just to find his friends. Always. Not that it had always been asked of him, but looking back, Riku had absolutely no doubt that given the chance, Sora would have taken it. That kind of passion and loyalty was as natural to Sora as breathing.

Even when they were children. Destiny Islands was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone's business, so when Sora was born, Riku was there. Or very close to being there, anyway. His mom and Sora's mom were friends, and always had been, so it only took a day of Sora being home from the hospital for Riku to be over there, ogling the tiny screaming pruny thing in his mom's friend's arms and wondering about what the heck the _point_ of it all was.

Riku was three by the time that Sora turned two, but by then, Sora had already pretty firmly attached himself to Riku's hip. And he wouldn't let go. So Riku tolerated him, and tolerated him, and then tolerated him some more, and soon enough it wasn't so much Sora-tagging-along-with-Riku as it was SoraandRiku, one word, one person.

And the weirdest part of it all was that Riku didn't even _like_ Sora that much. He was too loud, too happy, too enthusiastic all the time, and that was just... grating. They went together about as well as polka dots and plaid, if either of them had ever decided to wear those particular patterns.

Except for one day, when Riku was four and Sora was three, and a couple of the older six-year-olds had been teasing Riku about his hair. It wasn't _his_ fault that he was really, really prematurely grey, but that didn't seem to be getting through to the other kids. There were all sorts of adjectives being thrown around—_ugly_ and _stupid_ and _freak of nature_—and Riku, who could recite every word of his mother's many lectures about setting a good example for Sora, just stood there and took it.

Sora didn't, though.

Sora—brave, stupid little Sora—walked right up to the kid, kicked him square in the shin, and then bit his arm. Hard. _Bit him_, and Riku just gaped while the other kid ran away crying.

"Be _nice_," Sora'd shouted after him, and Riku busted out laughing just about as hard as it was humanly possible for a four-year-old to laugh. That was probably when Sora became "my friend Sora" instead of "that Sora kid". Probably.

It seemed like a funny incident when Riku thought back on it, but the thing is that that was what Sora was all about. He was always the kid who wouldn't hesitate to kick some shins and bite some arms if he ever caught someone hurting his friends, regardless of the fact that his friends (save for Kairi) were all bigger than him and could defend themselves quite well, thank you very much. He was just... like that.

That didn't mean it was any less surprising to Riku that Sora had traveled to the depths of hell to find him and bring him back. But he did. That's the thing that mattered, really. Sora _did_, and if he needed to, he would do it again.

It just sucked, sometimes. Because Sora was stupidly loyal and passionate and brave in that doesn't-think-things-through-all-the-way kind of way, and Riku... Well, Riku surrendered himself to the darkness in order to find an adventure, and that's just about the sum total of his existence as far as Sora was concerned.

"I sense that you're thinking too hard again, Riku," Sora informed him, leaning forward to look upside-down at Riku's face. "You should lighten up. I'm sure your brain cells will thank you."

It was one of those sunsets on the Islands, the type where it looks like the sun just dashed itself on the rocks, Prometheus-style, and bled out all over the horizon. You don't get those anywhere else. It comes with the territory.

Riku made a noncommittal noise. Sora plopped down in the sand next to him and offered his bottle of fruit juice—Riku declined. "Hey," Sora said, softer now, more subdued. "You know that there's thousands of worlds out there, right?"

"Yeah."

"And that all of them are pretty cool, right? I mean, Agrabah, Atlantica, Halloween Town. They all have some really awesome stuff. And awesome people. Right?"

Riku shot a sidelong glance at him and decided to play along. "...Yeah."

"And you know you're probably going to get to see them again someday, right? If King Mickey ever needs us again, I mean." Sora traced lines in the sand with his fingertips and refused to meet Riku's eyes.

"Right."

"...Well, we're all _right here_," Sora said, glancing up. "I know there's a ton of stuff out there, but we're right here. And things are okay, you know? I wish that was enough for you."

Oh, right. That was the other thing about Sora—he knew exactly how to cut, without even really meaning to. And that was probably part of his charm, Riku figured, but Sora knew exactly what to say to make Riku feel terrible. It was just that—well, Riku _knew_ he'd been spending a lot of time staring off at the horizon lately, and he knew he'd been more quiet than usual, but it wasn't because he didn't want to be there.

"It's enough," Riku replied after a moment, offering a crooked-half smile in Sora's direction.

It's just that the whole situation sort of blindsided Riku in the worst way. As if it hadn't been enough that Sora had traveled to the end of the world, and fought and bled for him—like that wasn't enough, Sora cried. Sora—brave, stupid little Sora—dropped to his knees and _cried_ when he found Riku, like the coming to find him hadn't been—

Hadn't been what? Painful enough, probably. That's probably what Riku was about to think. Because it _had_ been painful, the whole time.

"Hey, Riku, I have an idea." Sora poked him in the side, drawing his attention back to their conversation. "Humor me?"

_Always,_ Riku thought, and said "Sure."

After a moment of rummaging, Sora pulled a piece of paper and a very small stub of pencil from one of his many pockets and shoved them into Riku's hands. "Here," he said, flushing slightly. "Write down all the stuff that's bothering you—don't even bother trying to tell me it's nothing, because I've known you since I was _born_, I know it's not nothing." He dug his heels into the sand. "Just write it down."

"...And then what?"

"You'll see. Just write, okay?"

Riku stared for a split second, then shrugged. He'd do it, of course, because he always did. The pencil's tip stabbed through the paper a couple of times—obviously Sora'd had them in his pockets for ages—but after a few sentences Riku got the hang of it.

And he was surprised at how easily things came to him. Little pains that he hadn't even realised he was carrying with them:

_I'm sorry I made you come after me._

_I don't think I can ever be the role model you need._ (Because there were too many things wrong in the deep places in Riku's soul for him to ever, ever want Sora to look up to him.)

_I'm afraid to let this be my home, mostly because I felt more at home in the Darkness with you._ (This one was written especially small, in case Sora was reading over his shoulder.)

_I wish I'd taken that fruit juice, because now I'm really thirsty._ (Written large, in case Sora was reading over his shoulder.)

_Last night I had a dream that you killed me, and I woke up and realised that that was exactly why I love you._ (Because Sora could kill him if it came down to it, and Riku knew it, and he trusted Sora to do just that.)

When he'd run out of inanities to spill onto the paper, Riku dropped the pencil into the sand and shook his head. "Now what?" he asked, looking over to Sora.

"Now..." Sora said, pausing for dramatic effect. "Now, you let go."

"I—what?"

But Sora was grabbing the piece of paper and running for the waves, shoving Riku's list into the now-empty bottle of fruit juice that he'd brought along with him. "You _let go_," he shouted back, screwing on the lid.

"Sora, you little—" Riku'd followed him to the edge of the water, but now he stood frozen. The thing about Sora was that sometimes, Riku was knocked absolutely senseless by him for no reason at all. Sora was a lot of things, and there were a lot of adjectives that Riku could apply to him (though he usually chose not to—most of them were far too sentimental and girly to even consider) and as he stood there at the edge of the ocean and looked at Sora, a few feet away and in up to his knees, all he could think was _I'm alive, the world is alive._

"Riku?"

Sora held up the bottle and smiled. "Let it go," he said, and before Riku could respond, turned around and threw the bottle as hard as he could.

The funny thing was, it felt like relief. Like a weight lifted off of his shoulders as he watched that stupid little bottle float away on the tide.

"Sora."

And without even thinking about it, Riku walked out into the water, ignoring the sand that squelched under his feet and the water that lapped around his ankles. He walked out into the water, walked straight up to Sora—and as Sora's face morphed into a silent 'o' of surprise, Riku leaned down and kissed him.

He probably wouldn't be able to let everything go just then. But Sora would give him a reason to—Riku knew it. Because that was _Sora_, after all. Because Sora had always been the type of person who would travel worlds and galaxies and face imminent death for his friends, and ignoring the fact that Riku still felt like hell about the whole affair, and disregarding the way that Sora was so many kinds of too good for him that Riku could hardly begin to comprehend it—when he put all that away, he knew.

The fact of the matter was, Sora would always be there.

And Riku was okay with that.


End file.
